Workforce Development News – Dec. 30, 2013

A weekly collection of interesting, insightful, and innovative articles on workforce development, employment and training, business performance improvement, leadership, higher education, and the economy.

If a leader was seen as being very strong on results focus, the chance of that leader being seen as a great leader was only 14%. Social skills combine attributes like communication and empathy. If a leader was strong on social skills, he or she was seen as a great leader even less of the time — a paltry 12%. However, for leaders who were strong in both results focus and in social skills, the likelihood of being seen as a great leader skyrocketed to 72%.http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/12/should-leaders-focus-on-results-or-on-people/

“Conflict — presenting a different point of view even when it is uncomfortable — is critical to team effectiveness. Diversity of thinking on a team is the source of innovation and growth. It is also the path to identifying and mitigating risks. If you find yourself shying away from conflict, use one of these techniques to make it a little easier.”http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/12/conflict-strategies-for-nice-people/

“How much time do you have left? Time makes sense in small pieces. But when you look at huge stretches of time, it’s almost impossible to wrap your head around things. So we made this video to help you put things in perspective.” (YouTube 7:11).http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XkV6IpV2Y0

About Richard Schumacher

Richard Schumacher is the technology manager for the Workforce Solutions Group of St. Louis Community College. He connects, designs, and applies technology to meet business user needs with eLearning, training, web content, instructional design, IT system, and performance improvement solutions. Richard is a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and has held Microsoft Certifications since 1993. Learn more about Richard by following him: LinkedIn - Twitter - Google+ - Articles - Email

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